


Self Immolation

by Sedatephobia



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Anger, Angst, Apathy, Comfort, Death, Depression, Fire, M/M, Oneshot, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-29 23:26:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6398527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sedatephobia/pseuds/Sedatephobia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a bad run. Sans shuts down but thankfully Grillby is here to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Self Immolation

Grillby, it turned out, was a very sadistic bedfellow. It was startling -  how at odds his bedroom personality was compared to the persona he showed in his pub. It made sense, in a way. He was a being of fire, all consuming. Burning. Passionate. Still, even in the most passionate of settings, he was still reserved, controlled.

He would never hurt his partners more than they wanted to be hurt. He wasn’t psychotic, he just had the habit of letting go in the bedroom. Showing his true nature, if you will. He was loving and patient and smoldering. He made his partners gasp and cry out and writhe.

The sounds he made - the slight intake of breath, the long drawn out sighs, moans, groans and outcries - added fuel to Grillby’s fire. The bartender drew a burning finger down his sternum, almost humming in pleasure as the skeleton below him arched, hissing loudly towards - not away- the finger.

While Grillby would only burn as much as his partner could take, this relation was too new, he didn’t want to move too fast. Didn’t want to cause too much pain too quickly. Scare him away. He’d seen Sans flounder over himself more times than not. It was endearing. He, himself, had wanted to further the burn, the pain. He wanted to make this new bedfellow gasp. However, it wasn’t his place to ask. The small skeleton had too little control in his life, he needed the empowerment that came with asking Grillby for _more_. More than just their owner and patron relationship. More than the single smoldering finger.

Grillby always made Sans ask -plead- for more, to continue, _to make it hurt_. And so he complied. Running his hands along smooth bones, leaving behind blackened marks. Across the clavicle, down the sternum, over and under ribs. The bartender grasped both of the skeletal hands and loosely held them above his head. Sans could easily pull away if he so wished. He didn’t. And so the fire continued on. The remaining hand gripped the skeleton’s lower spine and held on, willing his flames to burn a little hotter. Sans cried out, arching up once again as much as he could with the larger monster pinning him down.

Sans was in agony, Grillby _hurt_. It was a good pain, a satisfying pain. A needed pain. A pain he deserved. He damn well deserved it. He had let his brother die, time and time again. He remembered the dust. The metallic clang of knife against yielding bone. He remembered being consumed by an altogether different fire. What he didn’t remember were the strong plasmatic arms encircling his trembling form. He didn’t remember Grillby holding him close. Protecting him from anger, grief, anguish. From himself.

The fire took the skeleton to his own house on the outskirts of Waterfall. Not too far away that he couldn’t hear the soft plinking of false rain, not too close to be dangerous to his kindled form. Grillby didn’t like the silence, it thrummed against his ears like an angered insect. Annoying at first, soon becoming maddening. The small, distraught being was a welcome change.

Grillby watched after Sans for weeks on end. He closed his bar. No one came. They were all gone anyhow. Into dust. _Vanished_. He attempted to make the skeleton eat, made him burgers, fries. Even bottles of ketchup were left untouched. Sans had burned through all his righteous magic. Or rather, the magic had burned through him. It hardly left anything behind. Just a shell of the house in which it was once contained.

For all the patience he had, this man, this skeleton, this mere husk was trying him. He had not moved far from the spot in which his would-be savior had set him down that first night. He had ceased every function not vital. He didn’t breathe, didn’t blink, the lights in his eyes had vanished. His smile was still plastered upon his face. No more effective than a doll’s. And just as disconcerting.  All what was left was desolate. Barren. Empty. Dead.  If it were not for the gentle thrumming, the pulsating, the resplendent glow of his soul Grillby would have not been surprised if Sans had just given up where he sat. Died, and turned to dust. Grillby would, again, be ever so alone. So cold. Extinguished.

Once, after another ignored meal, Grillby lashed out. He hissed out obscenities, insults, meaningless words that sprung to his tightly coiled mind, slag flew from his mouth. He raged blistered, cauterized the room around him. The cheery decorations inflamed in his anger, his frustration. His _desperation_. It was the catalyst to change. Fire cleansed all things, he reminded himself as Sans finally spoke. It was a cry of pain as the uncontrolled fire caught him across the chest, burning through the dirty, dust stained hoodie. Burning straight to bone, blackening the pristine whiteness. The soft dry utterance stilled Grillby instantly, his chest heaving with much needed oxygen. He stared at Sans. Sans continued to look forward.

Sans remembered. He remembered the pain. He knew his voice was hoarse and crackled with disuse. Something had re-awoken him. Need. He was hungry. He was weak. His need, however, was neither food nor energy.  He needed that sensation again. His pupils flickered once, like a burnt out bulb trying to keep itself alive, if only out of habit. He was too weak to even keep that miniscule magic intact.

It was all the blazing man needed. In an instant, as if he had borrowed Sans’, now defunct, teleportation, to appear in front of the being. This man, this defeated thing. Hardly aware, hardly caring, hardly _alive_. He had responded. A swell of hope filled Grillby’s chest. He could help. The bartender drew a burning finger down the skeleton’s sternum, flames crackling in excitement as Sans hissed in a ragged breath. The living fire licked across his ribs, his clavicle and caressed his partner’s cheek, crusty with long dried tears. The remaining salt tinted the flames beautiful purples, greens, blues. Beauty from destruction.

Sans reached forwards, capturing the wildfire in his arms, holding him close. Grillby allowed himself to _burn._  To hurt. To blacken. He hissed out in pleasure. It had _been so long._ They continued in mutual passion. Two needing, one providing, pleasure for both. Grillby let loose. He only stopped to silently ask the reanimated skeleton for permission. Sans answered him by pulling closer, pressing his entire torso up into the rolling flames. He seared himself, caused his bones to crackle and split warningly. And so they continued, Grillby’s mind too clouded by want, by need, by unbridled passion, to notice the signs.

Grillby should have known. He had been in the war, he knew the signs. He didn’t want to see them in his younger friend. His partner. His _lover_. He should have, but he didn’t. He shouldn’t have been surprised to wake up to an empty bed. He shouldn’t have been surprised to follow the call of a soul  in turmoil - a call he was so used to, it was little more than an insect’s hum- to the lava pits of Hotland. But he was.

He should have been surprised to suddenly hear the soul’s song cut off mid note. But he wasn’t.

He knew he was never a true replacement for Sans’ dead brother. He should have known, -but didn’t - he was little more than a sharp edge of a knife to Sans.

Once again, Grillby was alone.

Until a child came into his dusty bar. He had retreated -he couldn’t bear to be in the same house he and Sans shared for such a short time- and cleaned glasses in his own type of shock. It looked around in confusion. It inquired as to where the late skeleton, so scorched, so charged, was. Grillby looked at it, and smiled.  

Again, Grillby raged.

 


End file.
